KUALA LUMPUR: Bosch is expanding its business with software and services, aiming to generate billions of dollar from the segment by the end of the decade.
"For quite some time now, Bosch has also been a software company," said Dr. Stefan Hartung, chairman of the Bosch board of management, at the Bosch Tech Day 2024 in Renningen.
"Across the company, our extensive domain expertise allows us to put lines of code directly into products. The software in our products is technology that is 'Invented for life,' improving our customers' lives," he added.
Bosch software is already to be found in many areas, including the production lines of major industrial enterprises, many car repair shops and medical equipment.
It alerts drivers to cars on the wrong side of the road, protects valuable assets, controls building technology, and has worked in outer space, on the ISS.
All in all, 48,000 associates work as software programmers at Bosch, 42,000 of them in the mobility business sector alone.
"The triumphant march of software will fundamentally revolutionise the automotive industry," Hartung said.
Dr. Markus Heyn, member of the board of management of Bosch and chairman of the mobility business sector, said in the future, cars will be seamlessly integrated into the digital world. A
"As a result, they will be one thing more than anything else - updateable," he added.
Cars will then get new functions not by visiting a repair shop, but via a convenient software update "over the air."
"Bosch technology will mean that cars grow older more slowly."
And not just cars. Trucks, motorbikes, and e-bikes will also get new safety and convenience functions via an update.
Since the debut of the smart system for e-bikes at the end of 2021, Bosch has rolled out roughly 70 new features and modifications via the eBike Flow app – from an alarm and tracking feature to new riding modes.
A recent McKinsey study estimated that the global market for automotive software and electronics will reach US$462 billion by 2030.
From 2023, the share of software in vehicles will triple.
Bosch wants to be part of this growth market and to remain the go-to partner for automakers worldwide.
"We're standing at the dawn of the age of the software-defined vehicle," Heyn said. "For Bosch, that's good news, because we can do both: hardware and software."